


ain't no sin, ain't no virtue

by duchamp



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-20
Updated: 2016-12-20
Packaged: 2018-09-10 15:35:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,296
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8922718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duchamp/pseuds/duchamp
Summary: There’s a voice in her ear, quiet, insistent, deep and age-old, and she wonders if it’s her own. If this is how she sounds now. Child, it echoes. Dear child, you have no idea what I’m capable of.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I honestly have no idea what this is. This came about since I’ve been postponing the new SethKate fic that I’m writing and it’s just… really weird introspective character fic that’s incredibly sad and fucked up. There’s your warning.

 

 

 

Some of the owner men were  
a little proud to be slaves to such  
cold and powerful masters.

The owner men sat in the  
cars and explained.

You know the land is poor.  
You’ve scrabbled at it long enough, God knows.

JOHN STEINBECK

 

 

 

It’s a variation of torture. Mental conditioning. Mind control. Kate doesn’t know how to properly define it.

It starts after she breaks through the first time. Claws her way to the surface and takes a breath of dry desert air and blinks with her own two eyes. Strings cut. Takes steps as if she’s a newborn, trembling and knees nearly buckling. Touches her middle and finds herself untarnished and whole, bloodless. Reaches for the comforting weight of her cross and finds her neck bare.

She was dead. She’d had unholy hate clogging up her throat in the shape of bitter curses. She’d seen Scott and Richard’s tears and then nothing at all.

But there was an after. An in-between space. A series of fever dreams featuring her as the villain with hair red as fire and black hugging every curve. And her first thought was, this is wrong. I’d never dress like this. She felt uncomfortable. Like she was when she was thirteen at church camp and the popular girls who smoked cigarettes and had the football team’s attention dared her to put on matte lipstick and a push-up bra. Made fun of her until they had tears streaming down their faces from laughing. Had Kate running into her cabin and scrubbing her face clean, taking the borrowed bra off and cupping her bare breasts. They were flat and boyish and Kate had never felt uglier than she did then.

There’s an itch in the back of her head. An abnormal pressure.

Then there’s a voice in her ear, quiet, insistent, deep and age-old, and she wonders if it’s her own. If this is how she sounds now. Child, it echoes. Dear child, you have no idea what I’m capable of.

She wonders if she’s gone entirely mad.

She wonders if she’s in hell.

 

 

 

She’s in Mexico.

In a hotel that smells of mildew. Seth under her hold. Hurting. And she wants to help. Wants to help in another way. In a way that isn’t her sticking him with poison since he can’t do it himself. (His hands constantly shake. Can’t ever find a vein unless it’s by some ugly miracle.) “Baby,” he slurs. “Baby, please.” And that doesn’t make sense. He’s never called her that. Something that… intimate.

She sticks him. Pushes the plunger down only so far. Always cheats him of some of his stash. Always wants to play it safe. You know, in case. If she can’t get him clean she can at least make sure he doesn’t kill himself. “It’s alright,” she soothes, and squeezes the base of his neck. “You’ll feel it here in a moment.” And that doesn’t make sense, either. She’s never talked him through this before.  

He slumps forward. Curls at the waist. Chin resting on his chest, eyes drooping closed. Looks like one of those Spaghetti Western movie stars out of a black and white classic who’s going to get some much earned sleep before the big finale.

Kate braces him, helps him lay back on the bed. He’s mumbling as she does. Gibberish. There are a few figments she can make out, though. “Thank you, Katie.” And, “You’re so sweet, doing this for me.” And, “I love you.”

She freezes. Another thing that doesn’t make sense. Seth doesn’t love her. Seth couldn’t love her. She’s too young and too plain and too inexperienced and he’d laugh in her face if he ever knew how she felt about him. She brushes it off. Rationalizes that he’s thinking of his ex-wife or a long lost flame and she’s simply the nearest warm body to project upon. “Go to sleep,” she whispers. “Have good dreams, Seth.”

He smiles. She lays on the opposite side of the bed. Sees the even pace of his chest rising and falling and knows she could rest her head on it and he’d never know. But that’d be wrong. Seth doesn’t see her that way. To steal something for herself like that, it’d be so wrong. But she allows herself to come closer, to stretch out her arm and put her hand at the center of him. Tells herself that this is fine. She’s simply making sure he’s alright. That his breathing remains even under her palm. That he doesn’t start coughing or seizing.

She dozes. Dreams of Daddy being alive and Mama being happy and Scott being with her. When she wakes, Seth’s chest is still. She starts, jumps over him, straddling his legs. “Seth!” His name is shrill in her mouth and she’s probably disturbing the other tenants and that’s rude of her and Mama always taught her to be polite but Seth isn’t breathing and she’s really, really scared. She cups his face in her hands and discovers he’s cold. Slaps his cheek because it’s violence that’s justified, violence that stems from caring, but he doesn’t respond.

This can’t be happening. She couldn’t have done this. She couldn’t. She loves him. She’s _in_ love with him, and Lord knows she’s tried not to be. (Thought she had more self-respect. More self-worth. No way would she let herself fall for a convict, a killer. For a junkie and a fuck-up. But she does. She has. Fallen for Godlessness and inked flames and years on her mere eighteen.)

Yet, it is happening.

He’s dead.

She’s killed him.

She killed him.

She blinks and she’s not in Mexico anymore. Seth’s not there and her body isn’t her own. She’s a silent, observing passenger—Amaru laughing in her head. You play with me, she says, I’ll play with you.

Kate remembers, now. Remembers traversing the boiler rooms of an underground fight club, the details of how she got there murky and surreal. Remembers trying to control her own limbs, knowing that she was going to be used as a vessel to exact some other crime. And then she saw him. Seth—entering a bullpen to the raucous of onlookers. And it was like pulling thread through a needle. Liquid through a straw. She was herself again. Ready to yell for him, his name waiting on her lips, but Amaru pulled her back down. Came back on top and pushed Kate under and suddenly she was in Mexico in that motel with Seth.

It wasn’t real, Kate thinks. You had me… you had me _kill_ him.

I can do much more than that, little girl. Amaru’s amused. Gloating.

God, she has killed.

She didn’t kill Seth but she killed that woman. That woman who Santanico held so much love for, who held so much love for Santanico. She saw it laid bare as her soul drained away.

 

 

 

There’s a delicacy to it. A technique. A way of living that includes bottling her thoughts, taking each tendril of awareness and storing it away. Being careful, unheard. Allowing herself to cultivate information, learn what’s being planned among Xibalba’s elect, and not bring it to Amaru’s attention. It’s difficult. It _hurts_. Keeping her feelings so small. But it’s what has to be done. It’s what she has to do.

Amaru glances at Scott’s concert notice and she fails. Can’t help the burst of emotion that travels through when she sees his face on that piece of paper. Knows she needs to find him. He’s a liability now, for her. An asset, for Amaru. Can easily be held over her head when she’s not careful enough to leave her thoughts to herself. When she doesn’t behave.

She fights. Trounces Amaru’s grasp on her mobility and suddenly she’s walking. She’s running. She’s on public transportation to the downtown nightclub scene, fitting right in with the partygoers in her lavish outfit. In her makeup. In her heeled boots.

These adornments aren’t hers, though. Never hers. Amaru’s.  

When she finds Scott, it’s hard not to cry. He looks good. Better. Self-assured simply in the way he holds himself. Grown-up. His own man. She gets his attention and makes him believe. (It’s me, it’s really me. I’m not some ghost come back to haunt you, not some demon come to manipulate you. No, I’m you sister and I love you. I’m here to warn you, here to protect you.)

In his arms, his hold on her bruising and tight, that’s when the tears come.

You’ll kill him, Amaru growls, the vibration of it crowding Kate’s chest. I’ll make sure you kill him with your bare hands. The words are accompanied with images, a horoscope of horrors: Scott still under Carlos’ wing. Scott killing. Scott taking _pleasure_ in killing. Gleeful at the tears of helpless girls as he bites into their flesh and drains them into a forever sleep. (Kate knows the visions aren’t real. False effigies. But they feel tangible, bone and misery.)

“Run!” She screams at Scott. And he isn’t moving. God, why isn’t he moving?

Nausea bubbles to the surface along with Amaru’s unbearable weight and Kate retches blood.

She’s not in control anymore.

She’s lost.

 

 

 

“Katie,” he says. Simply her name. And it roots her to the spot and makes her limbs go weak, because it’s Richard. Her Richie; and he’s always had this effect on her. Since beaming sunlit chlorinated waves and a bummed cigarette lit by a stranger’s hands.

Girlish, silly. She barely knows him, does she? Stolen kisses borne from manipulation and a need to escape. Stupid, Amaru’s voice supplies for her. A schoolgirl crush. You young human girls are so fickle. Go sweet at the first sign of understanding, at the first offer of intimacy.

And Kate shakes her head, dispels those thoughts, because Amaru’s not here right now. She can’t be. Because Kate’s truly in her own body again—loose denim jeans around her waist, leather belt with a metal buckle, slim t-shirt and unbuttoned sweater hanging from her shoulders, hair a natural color again, down in loose locks, framing her face—and Richard’s here, in front of her. Ironed suit and horn-rimmed glasses and neatly combed back hair.

“Where were you?” He asks her. “I’ve been waiting for you. I didn’t want you to leave.” He sounds sad, lonely. It makes Kate feel unbearably guilty.

But she’s confused. Outplaced and out of time. “Where was I?” Voice small and shaking, tongue thick, mouth dry. She feels the beginnings of panic swell in her gut and she doesn’t know why. She’s safe. Richard’s here and she’s safe. There’s no Malvado, no Carlos, no promise of a seat at an ancient royal table. Her palm isn’t cut and his isn’t either.

He shakes his head. Walks towards her and she holds out her arms without a second thought. Just wants him to hold her. Just wants someone who loves her to be with her, now. And he does love her, doesn’t he? Amaru’s voice is there again—No, it supplies. He doesn’t.

But Richard’s gripping her tightly. With certainty. Presses his lips to her skin. Buries his mouth in her throat. Makes her feel sheltered. Makes her feel as if any and all danger has passed. Kate’s about to tell him that, tell him how he’s making her feel, thank him for this comfort, but then his fangs sink into her pulse point and she can’t say anything at all.

She gasps, head swimming, pushes at his chest with her little hands, tries to get him off her, but her efforts are fruitless. He doesn’t budge and this doesn’t make any sense. This doesn’t make any sense at all. Richard’s gentle when he’s with her, even kind. Richard would never hurt her. But there’s hot red lifeblood running in fast rivulets down her neck; making its way between her breasts and down her arms, dripping from her outstretched fingers and burrowing under her nails.

Her strength wanes and her arms drop to her sides. Her legs go limp and she begins to sink to the ground in his arms. She tries to tell him to stop but she can’t. Words still aren’t possible and she’s loosing her grip on reality.

She can’t breathe. She doesn’t want to die, again. Please, God, she doesn’t want to die.

Please, Richie, she thinks. Please, _please_ , stop. I’m not ready. I’ll never be ready.

Black, then.

Nothing.

She comes to and sees Richard in a straightjacket, locked in the mental asylum where Amaru instigated a massacre five months prior. She knows now, from seeing his soul open and flayed at Amaru’s hand, how his father used to threaten locking him in an institution like this. How he’d break a bottle over his head when Richard would shield Seth and yell profanities. Call him lamebrained and moronic and dim.

Furious hatred wells. Kate’s bones ache with it and she wants to tear her body apart, if it just means that this will stop. Let him go, she orders. Puts as much force behind the words as she can.  

You’re in no position to make demands, Amaru scoffs. Richard’s quite the instrument. And he has such an important part to play.

I’m sorry, Kate thinks, not really caring if the thought is too loud. If Amaru sees her as being pathetic and weak.

She just wishes Richard could hear her.

 

 

 

She counts. Grasps to the numbers. Cold, mechanical things.

Tries to give herself structure where there’s none to be had. Where she’s simply a specter of consciousness trapped in a shell from another life.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

She starts again. Slower this time.

1,

2,

3,

4,

5. 

And again.

It’s the small things that keep you sane.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://highsmith.tumblr.com/).


End file.
